


A Halloween Haunting

by Evergreena



Series: Batfam Bingo Shorts [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)
Genre: Batman Bingo, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Ghosts, Halloween, Haunting, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Life, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Lazarus Pit, Nightmares, Tim Drake is Robin, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:26:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27177854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evergreena/pseuds/Evergreena
Summary: Jason Todd thinks Halloween is a humbug. A series of visiting ghosts try to clear things up for him.
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: Batfam Bingo Shorts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1934611
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	A Halloween Haunting

There once was a time Jason had liked Halloween.

The memory of that fleeting moment was faint and buried beneath a mountain of other feelings about the haunted holiday, none positive. In fact, he’d much rather skip it entirely if that were possible. Each year he barricaded himself indoors away from the festivities and annoying kids and teenagers frolicking around in mismatched costumes with pillowcases full of sugary sweets that would rot their teeth. There was far too much fake blood, ridiculous green zombies, plastic cauldrons and styrofoam gravestones with jokes writ upon them.

 _Disrespectful,_ he thought as he passed a grinning orange skeleton hung on the door of his apartment building. Having died and all, the festivities landed differently on him now. He tried to convince himself that was why he hated Halloween. It wasn’t the whole truth, but if he could pretend—

“Jason! You’re back finally! I’ve been waiting all afternoon for you to show up!”

Even before the door closed behind him Jason found himself on the receiving end of a legendary Dick Grayson glomp. He immediately shoved him off. “What are you doing here?” he grumbled, glancing around to see if there was anyone else in the tiny lobby. Last thing he needed was anyone to see him with Dick, who was blinged out in a tacky jack-o-lantern sweatshirt and black nail polish. “And what are you wearing? You’re going to burn my eyes with that blaze orange.”

“Come on, it’s only one day of the year!”

“Thank heavens,” Jason muttered.

Dick cocked his head to the side. “Don’t tell me you’re still mad about last year. That prank was _not_ my idea.“

“What do you want?”

A beat passed as Dick scrutinized him with a small frown. Then he brightened again. “I came to invite you to a party tonight at my place! Wally’s coming over, Donna too, and a few others I managed to rope into coming. You don’t have to dress up or anything if you don’t want. I’d love to have you there.”

“No.” Jason pushed past toward the stairs (the elevator didn’t work).

“Why not? I’m pretty sure you don’t have other plans.” Dick trotted after him like a lost puppy.

“My plans are to turn out all the lights, close the shades, and go to bed.”

“Aw, where’s your Halloween spirit?”

“In my grave.”

“Why are you mad? Did Bruce say something stupid again?”

Bruce always said something stupid, but Jason couldn’t blame his sour mood entirely on him this time. “Would you let it lie?” He reached the door to the stairs and yanked it open.

“Does this mean you’re not coming?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Glad you finally figured that out. Stupid holiday anyway.” He slammed the door behind him and didn’t wait to see the look of hurt that surely crossed Dick’s face.

* * *

He’d just pulled off his shoes and settled on his broken-down loveseat when someone knocked on his door. He almost got up when he remembered. Ah yeah, trick-or-treaters. Little vultures.

He ignored it.

But then another knock came. And then another.

 _The kids just don’t know how to give it up,_ he thought. He heaved himself off the couch and after one long string of persistent knocks, he yanked open his door. “Go away! I don’t have any candy, so get lost!”

Two kids, a boy in a Mario costume and a girl dressed as Luigi scampered back in terror. The boy dropped his bucket of candy and it spilled in the hall.

Jason closed the door and sighed. It was no use hanging out in here. He’d get no peace with kids knocking on his door all night.

His eyes fell on his leather jacket tossed over the back of the couch. He might as well go out tonight.

His phone rang. He answered it without looking. “I’m not coming to your stupid party, Dick, so you can stop asking.”

“Ah, Master Jason,” came Alfred’s startled voice over the line. “I was wondering if Dick managed to find you.”

“Hey Alf,” he said a bit sheepishly. “Sorry about that.”

“No matter,” Alfred said. “The reason for my call is that we seem to have been saddled with an abundance of pumpkin cookies, and I was wondering if you should like a dozen or so?”

“Let me guess,” he said. “You made them with Tim specifically to give to me.” When Alfred didn’t answer right away, he went on. “Well, I don’t want anything that brat touched, so you can count me out.” He hung up and tossed his phone aside.

Immediately he felt bad for snapping at the old butler. He ran a hand through his hair. He really needed to let off some steam.

And what better way than to go out as Red Hood? He was ready to snap, so he might as well go take it out on creeps and criminals.

* * *

Jason avoided the more family-friendly neighborhoods to stay away from the kitchy lights and costumes. That meant he ended up in alleys with violent mobsters and drug dealers. He beat them up, of course, but his heart wasn’t really in it tonight.

He climbed up next to his favorite gargoyle to clear his head.

From the top of this gothic skyscraper, the view of the dark city spread out at his feet. He sighed and leaned back against the gargoyle’s side. This was one place trick-or-treaters and partygoers couldn’t find him…

“Rough night?”

He jolted at the sound of a young voice next to him. “Who’s there?”

The air next to him turned ice cold and shimmered. He scrabbled backwards along the ledge to get away from it. To his horror and fascination, a figure formed there—a kid, barely a teen, dressed in a shredded Robin costume that floated about him unaffected by gravity. His eyes were dark and flat like stones behind his torn mask. Blood streaked his tattered yellow cape. “In life, I was your childhood,” the ghost said. “Jason Todd.”

Jason shook his head, unable to believe his eyes beneath his helmet. “I must’ve knocked my head in one of those fights.”

“I’m not a hallucination!” the ghost said, sounding peeved. “In fact, I came here to give you a warning, you big dolt!”

“What?”

The floating kid extended a gloved finger toward him. “Three Halloween spirits will come to you before midnight. If you don’t shape up by then, you’re toast, you dumb boob.” With that, the ghost popped out of sight again.

The nearest clocktower struck ten o’clock.

* * *

By the time Jason got over his shock, suspicion had started to set in. He shot off his grappling hook and sailed away from the tower, thoughts racing as fast as his heartbeat. That vision had been too real, too close to how he’d looked right before he died.

He was shaken out of his thoughts by something in his peripheral vision as he sailed through the air. He turned his head and nearly fell to his doom. Another ghostly figure flew alongside him.

He landed on the ledge of a windowsill and readied his guns. “What are you?” he growled at the floating being. Now he could see it was another ghostly child, but this one was decked out in a flamboyant blue, green, and yellow costume of feathers, with a beaked Venetian mask.

“Hi!” the apparition said cheerfully. “I’m the ghost of Halloween Past!” He had a faintly European accent that Jason couldn’t place. “Come on!” He grabbed Jason’s hand without warning.

Jason tried to raise his gun, but found his hand was empty. “Wha—“ he began, but stopped short when he realized he was no longer on a windowledge of a skyscraper in downtown Gotham.

He stood in a dingy room next to his mother’s bed, and his own younger self stood beside her.

“Heck no,” he said.

“Sorry,” the birdlike kid replied. “I don’t make the rules.”

Jason couldn’t look away as his younger self set a plastic orange bucket on his mom’s bedspread. She was obviously too ill to even recognize he was there.

He remembered that Halloween. He had been so excited to go trick-or-treating for the first time, but she didn’t wake up in time to take him out.

Now, tiny Jason was resting his head on his arms next to his treat bucket. His eyes closed.

“I don’t want to see this,” Jason muttered to the ghost.

“Yeah, this is depressing, let’s go somewhere fun!”

The world swirled around him, and then he was standing in the entryway of Wayne Manor, which was festooned with orange garlands and plastic spiders.

Jason had hardly a chance to get his bearings before the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it!” screamed a young voice. Galloping feet echoed in the hall, and then younger Jason skidded around the corner. He yanked open the front door.

“Trick-or-treat!” a chorus of kids shouted from the stoop. They held out buckets.

Younger Jason snatched up a fake cauldron from the table by the door and began doling out heaping handfuls of candy. His grin was huge with delight.

When the kids had gone with their parents, young Jason closed the door and sighed happily.

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” Bruce said.

Both Jasons whirled.

Younger Jason nodded. “It’s my first real Halloween party,” he admitted.

“Then come on, Dick’s waiting in the living room to carve pumpkins.” Bruce put a hand on young Jason’s shoulder and steered him back down the hall, leaving older Jason feeling strangely hollow.

“What’s wrong?” the flamboyant bird-kid ghost asked.

“I just… there were some trick-or-treaters earlier. I wish I’d been nicer to them,” he said. “I forgot how much fun it was to hand out candy.”

The ghost was floating above his head now, doing a lazy backstroke in the air.“It is fun, isn’t it, Little Wing?”

Jason narrowed his eyes. “Dick?”

The kid whipped off his beak mask and did a bow, standing on the banister of the grand staircase. Now Jason could see those familiar blue eyes and touseled dark hair.

“But—You’re not dead! Why are you a ghost?”

Young Dick laughed so hard he doubled over. “Ah, but this Robin is gone forever, no? I’m just a memory now.”

The Manor faded into mist. Through the swirling gray night, he saw the glowing face of the clocktower.

“Aw, my time is up,” Dick said. “Be nice to the next guy, okay?”

When Jason turned to answer him, Dick was already gone.

The clocktower struck eleven.

* * *

The strange fog thickened around the gothic spires of the city, making it difficult for Jason to judge distances as he grappled from perch to perch. He was thoroughly creeped out now. _Time to go home_ , he thought desperately. _Maybe there things will make sense._

He landed in a somersaulting roll on the roof of the Gotham City Bank. Not far now.

Flames burst up in front of him and he fell backwards onto the roof. A dark figure loomed above him, holding a burning torch.

Jason couldn’t find his voice. He pushed back on his hands and feet, crab-walking away from the ominous figure.

“What are you doing, Jason?”

He hit an airconditioning unit and stopped to stare. That voice had sounded young… and strangely familiar again. Not Dick this time, though. “Who are you?” he rasped.

The figure raised the torch to reveal his face. Well, his mask. It was a young teen dressed in a ruby-colored dragon costume that covered his features entirely, with a scaled leather snout and green glass eyes that glowed in the torchlight. He even had articulated dragon wings sprouting from his back. It was an impressive bit of costuming, Jason had to admit.

“I am the Ghost of Halloween Present,” the dragon-boy said. “You better sit up because you might not like what you see.”

Before Jason could protest, a clawed glove grabbed his wrist, and once more his surroundings faded away.

This time, he knew instantly where he was. The Batcave. Bruce stood near his computer bay, scratching his chin about something that had him puzzled. Probably a case.

Alfred descended the stairs. "Master Bruce, please tell me you aren't going out on patrol tonight. Master Tim was looking forward to a night of pumpkin carving for once.”

Bruce sighed. "I won't go out until later," he promised. There was a heavy reluctance to his words. "But I don't really feel like carving pumpkins, to be honest." He glanced back, almost right at Jason, and he almost thought he could be seen by Bruce, his look was so intense. But no, he walked right through him as if he were vapor.

Jason shivered and turned to see where Bruce was going.

“Oh, noooo,” he groaned.

Bruce stood in front of the case that held Jason’s old Robin suit, battered and torn and carefully repaired to be displayed as such.

“Take me away, Spirit,” he begged. He didn’t want to look at Bruce’s self-pitying, guilt-ridden face. He didn’t want to see his former guardian wallow in his wistful sad memories. But a part of him was curious. “Is this what is really happening tonight?”

The dragon boy inclined his spiked head. “Yup. But I can take you to see what the rest of your family is doing tonight, instead.”

The scene shifted. He blinked at the chaotic lights and loud music. This place was familiar, but he didn’t recognize the apartment until Dick popped up in front of him with his buddy Wally. They both wore way too many orange glowsticks all over their bodies. Dick leaned back against the wall.

“I’m right, admit it,” Wally was saying in a teasing tone. “You thought he would actually come, didn’t you?”

Dick looked down at his hands. “I dunno. I hoped.”

“Dude, he’s turned you down for every event you’ve invited him to. Why do you bother?”

“Because he’s my brother, dingus.”

Jason’s throat was suddenly tight. He hadn’t known Dick cared that much about whether he came to these stupid things.

Wally waved Donna over. “Yo, tell Boy Wonder here that he’s got to stop inviting murderers to our team things!”

“Wally!” Dick gasped. “Jason’s not a murderer!”

“He kind of is,” Donna said carefully.

Dick raised his hands to the ceiling. “I can’t believe you guys! He’s probably lonely tonight but as usual too proud to admit it.”

“Okay, I’m sorry!” Wally tugged Dick toward the kitchen. “Maybe he’ll still show up…”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “Maybe…”

Jason reached out as if to stop him, but the party and the apartment swirled away into mist again.

The dragon kid tapped his shoulder. “What’s up?”

“Shut up,” Jason mumbled. “Take me home.”

The kid bowed and gestured behind him. “As you wish.”

They were back in the entryway Wayne Manor. But this time, it was quiet, and the lights were out to discourage trick-or-treaters. It appeared that no one was home.

“Ha-ha, very funny, you little brat,” he muttered.

Then he saw a light flick on down the hall, and he drifted toward it, curious but also dreading whatever unpleasant sights the ghost had conjured for him to witness. He peered cautiously into the drawing room.

Alfred was methodically dusting every shelf of the bookcase, the end tables, the lampshades of the blown-glass lamp. Even though his shoulders were as straight as ever, there was something about this demeanor that seemed off to Jason. Then he remembered how he’d yelled at the butler in their last phone conversation, and the ball of guilt in his stomach tightened.

Alfred, oblivious to his presence, finally reached the table with all the framed photos he’d collected over the years. This was Alfred’s own special corner of the room, his little shrine to the family and its scattered members. There was Dick as a boy, that mischievious grin as he hung upside down from an upper railling. There was a school photo of Tim Drake, the latest Robin who Bruce had taken in after… well, after Jason. Alfred picked up another frame and paused to polish it.

Jason peeked over his shoulder. The picture was of Jason as a boy, wearing a ridiculous bedsheet costume and thick black and white makeup to make his face look like a skull. His skinny arms hugged an orange bucket of candy.

The butler rubbed it and sighed heavily.

Jason stepped back, feeling guilty all over again for the way he’d spoken to Alfred earlier. He stalked back into the dark hall.

The dragon kid skipped beside him, holding his torch out to light the way. “All done with us, Jason?”

He turned to the kid and ripped off the dragon mask. “You!”

It was Tim. The kid shrugged. “Hi Jason. We never talk, do we?”

“You’re not real. I don’t have to listen to you.”

Ghost-Tim raised his torch. “Too late for that. I have shown you what’s happening so that you can make your choice tonight. Choose wisely! You have only minutes left before midnight!”

The flames of his torch raged so brightly that Jason had to blink and turn away.

Tim was gone.

* * *

The clocktower appeared out of the darkness. Ten to midnight. Jason groaned, trying to think. What was happening to him?

A chill wind swirled around his body. He felt compelled to look up. A small figure perched on the top of the nearest roof, balanced on one leg. Yet another spirit?

“Who are you?” Jason asked, unable to shake off the feeling that something bad was about to transpire.

The figure, dressed in an elaborate hooded ninja costume complete with swords and cloth mask, did not answer.

“Let me guess,” Jason said. “You’re the Ghost of Halloween Future?”

The figure flipped down from the perch. Jason thought it was a boy, younger than him. Was this another Robin? But that was impossible, Tim was the only replacement that had come after him. Wasn’t he?

The fun-sized assassin spirit reached out a gloved hand. Jason flinched back. He was too slow. The child grabbed his wrist with an alarmingly firm grip.

The mists swarmed them.

Flickering images floated out of the darkness. Jason hardly knew where to look. He stared wide-eyed at the horrible things he saw…

In a dingy wharf-side warehouse Batman violently pummeled a mobster. He continued to beat him even after the guy fell unconscious. At last he turned on the man’s associate, who cowered under his blank glare.

“Please, don’t hurt me! I wasn’t involved! I didn’t have anything to do with it!”

Batman gripped his collar and slammed him against the wall. “Who?” he roared.

Jason shivered. He’d seen Batman angry before. This felt different.

Held fast by Batman’s unwavering fists, the crook whimpered. “I don’t know, I’m s-sorry! If I knew I’d tell you!”

Batman dropped the man to the concrete floor. “You’d better find out,” he growled. “I’ll find you tomorrow, and if you don’t have a lead on who killed the Red Hood…”

Jason gasped. His ninja spirit guide pulled him away.

The next vision showed Dick, in his apartment. His face was uncharacteristically blank as he packed up his suitcase. His phone rang, and he immediately silenced it.

A moment later, someone knocked at the door. Dick groaned. “Go away, Wally.”

The door opened. Wally zipped in. “You didn’t answer your phone, man.” He saw the suitcase. “Wait, you’re leaving?”

Dick turned away. “I can’t stay near Gotham.”

“This because of Jason?”

Dick didn’t answer.

“Look, you’ve got to stop blaming yourself. It’s gonna destroy you.”

“Whether I blame myself or not, it’s still my fault. Please, just let me go.”

Jason tried to put his hand on Dick’s shoulder, but it went through him like vapor. “This isn’t the Dick I know. He doesn’t care about me this much.” He turned back to the ghost. “Does he?”

The ghost shrugged and touched his wrist again.

He floated next to Tim on a rooftop, in his Robin costume. Even despite the mask, it was obvious the kid was completely exhausted. He slumped tiredly and his eyelids drooped. But there was also a hardness about his expression that Jason had never noticed before.

“Why does he look so tired?” Jason murmured, not really expecting an answer.

Tim’s comm beeped and he answered. “Hi Alf, any sign of him?” He listened for a moment, then nodded. “I’m on my way. Someone’s got to stop him before he kills himself like this.” There was no doubt in Jason’s mind that the kid was talking about Bruce.

He shot off a grappling hook, but even Jason could see that he was off mark. Tim didn’t notice. He stumbled off the roof before even testing the wire.

The grapple slipped. Tim dropped out of sight.

Jason’s stomach lurched. He raced to the edge and looked down. Tim managed to shoot off another line, this time catching on a nearby billboard. He swung out of sight. That had been too close. Jason knew the kid would never have messed up like that if he were getting the proper rest. He’d get _himself_ killed if he kept this up.

“It’s all because of me, isn’t it?” he murmured. The others all thought he was dead. Due to some bizarre sense of responsibility, the replacement thought it was his job to hold them together. Maybe he ought to have given Tim a chance.

The clock began to toll midnight.

The dark-clad ghost child clasped his wrist again. Suddenly he was sinking in some kind of liquid. “Uh, ninja kid…” He looked around and his heartrate spiked. He knew where he was.

The Lazarus Pit.

The noxious green liquid bubbled out fumes around him. He was slowly sinking down.

The ninja kid released him, still floating silently above the Pit. There was something familar about the look of sneering pity on his barely visible face.

“Hey!” Jason called. “You’re not going to let me die here, are you?” He couldn’t go through that again. Not here, like this.

He could still hear the midnight bell chiming, though he saw nothing but dark cave walls around the glowing green water. No one else was there. Just him and the ghostly boy above him, who appeared to be fading…

_Chime._

“No! Get me out of here! I’ve learned my stupid lesson, I get it!” He was begging now, and he didn’t even care. The liquid was up to his neck now, lapping around his helmet. “Please!”

The ninja boy was gone.

_Chime._

He could feel the chemicals attacking his healthy body, breaking it down to build it again. Spots of damaged flesh appeared on his hands in grotesque sores. He couldn’t help it, he screamed.

The acidic liquid quickly evaporated his helmet. It closed over his mouth and nose and eyes, drowning him.

_Chime._

* * *

Jason opened his eyes. The looming form of his gargoyle greeted him. He gasped and scrambled backwards on his usual ledge, pressing his trembling body against the wall of the building as if to draw strength from its bricks. He wasn’t in the Pit anymore. The awful fumes and fluids had vanished as if they were never there. His helmet perched on the ledge next to him.

He raised a shaking hand and pulled off his glove with his teeth. His skin underneath was whole and healthy. He pinched the back of his hand to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating again. Or _whatever_ all that was.

He checked the clocktower. He almost didn’t believe it. Somehow it was only ten o’clock. The night was apparently still young, though it felt like he’d had enough nightmares to last a week.

Rubbing his face tiredly, he focused his energy on trying to clear his head and calm his still-racing heart. He thought over the scenes he’d witnessed more critically. It was a lot of data, more than a nightmare would usually produce. It wasn’t like him to doze off, especially when he was on patrol, and especially when he was in such a precarious position.

 _It’s Halloween,_ some childish part of his brain supplied. He jolted at the realization, and was instantly flooded with guilt. _Dick! And Alf!_ He had to apologize to both of them. And… maybe he ought to give the Replacement a chance. The sight of Tim driving himself to exhaustion to keep Batman alive might have been only a hallucination, but it rang true with what little he knew of the tenacious kid.

Despite… everything, he found himself smirking a little. _It IS Halloween._ Maybe it was time to set aside his bitterness and fear and try to redeem the night for once. He _had_ learned something from the strange series of ghostly apparitions modeled after his fellow Robins (and that strangely silent ninja kid who he was starting to think was his psyche’s way of predicting a future legacy of the persona).

He wasn’t going to waste his Halloween moping. He would start by dropping by the Manor to see Alfred. If Tim and Bruce were there, so be it. Call it his newfound Halloween spirit, but he was feeling generous toward even them.

After that, perhaps he’d actually crash Dick’s little party and see what kind of welcome he’d get if he came in a costume of his own. After all, what better way to indulge in his more sardonic tendencies than to show up as a freaking zombie? Donna and Wally might disapprove. Dick would love it.

Wasn’t that what the holiday was really about? Celebrating the fun side of the creepy and spooky with your friends and family? It sounded cheesy, but he honestly did miss it. Tonight he would try to take it back from the dark recesses where he’d lost it. Tonight he would have _fun_.

His enthusiasm kindled, he replaced his gloves and helmet, then shot off a grapple into the night. He tested it, gave his gargoyle a pat for luck, and leaped off.

As he sailed through the air, he glanced back over his shoulder. Something near the place he’d just vacated caught his eye:

A ghostly form sat on the gargoyle’s head, bare legs dangling off without a care in the world, a mask quirked above an impish grin, yellow cape fluttering in the night breeze… His younger self extended two thumbs up.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how I feel about this one, but it was sitting in my drafts folder collecting dust, so I figured I'd post it. Also, it fullfills the "Ghost" square on my Batman bingo card. :P Happy Early Halloween!


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